Iran to install fuel rods in Nuclear reactor

Tehran: Iran will insert its first domestically-produced nuclear fuel rods into a research reactor in Tehran on Wednesday, a top Iranian official said.

"Because western countries were unwilling to help us, we began enriching uranium to 20 percent to make nuclear fuel rods," Ali Bagheri, deputy chief of Iran's National Security Council, said in an interview.

Western nations and Israel have charged that Tehran is secretly working to build nuclear weapons - an assertion Iran vehemently denies.

"These nuclear rods, the first created by Iranian specialists, will be inserted tomorrow into the Tehran Research Reactor in the presence of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad," Bagheri said on Tuesdsay.